Published: Friday, March 1, 2013 at 11:15 p.m.

Last Modified: Friday, March 1, 2013 at 11:15 p.m.

John Jorgensen presents findings on a review of city computers during a City Commission special meeting at City Hall in Sarasota in January, 2012.

H-T ARCHIVE

An embattled city manager — who later resigned — was using the city's Information Technology department to spy on his political rivals, namely the city auditor and clerk who criticized him often.

An anonymous tip of email “scrubbing” sparked investigations by state and federal agencies. Two commissioners unplugged their office phones because they had seen a blinking light and heard strange noises on the line. Commissioners called upon a consultant, a former National Security Agency cyber expert, to untangle the web.

Almost a year and a half after Sarasota hired John Jorgensen to look into the city's IT department, his company's report has come as an anticlimactic footnote in the city's history.

Jorgensen outlined potential Sunshine Law violations and an IT department in disarray, but no criminal wrongdoing was found. City Manager Tom Barwin has also said he has been assured by law enforcement agencies that no crimes were committed.

Jorgensen delved deep into the city's technical issues — he helped overhaul the IT Department and suggested numerous policy changes to avoid potential Sunshine Law and computer fraud violations by retaining public records and not releasing exempt information.

He charged the city $124,965.

Staff did not fully understand how the email system functioned, failed to install some software updates for years and were not updating operational system logs.

The Sarasota police email system was also being run through the city's email access process and had the same security problems.

“We're lucky we didn't get hacked and the city just totally destroyed,” Snyder said.

Over the past year, Sylint and another firm looked into the issues. Sylint led the city IT Department as it updated its systems.

“It became obvious that the serious security and operational problems identified by both firms needed to be addressed immediately in order to prevent the City of Sarasota network from operational failure and potentially a serious security breach,” the report states.

IT staff also ran hundreds of open-ended email searches and burned the information — some of which was exempt — on CDs and flash drives. Exempt emails included information related to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's investigation into misuse of federal money.

IT Manager Sandra Coleman, who was placed on paid leave during the investigations, recently returned to work after a year.

Her computer was reviewed by Sylint, and the final report showed she ran searches on Commissioner Paul Caragiulo, Nadalini and Veda Mahadi — an assistant in the city manager's office.

Another IT staffer, Neil Bailey, ran searches on Commissioner Terry Turner's emails and emails of staff in the auditor and clerk's office.

Craig told investigators that former City Manager Robert Bartolotta thought Mahadi was a “spy” for the auditor and clerk, and that she was reviewing Bartolotta's emails for audit material, according to investigative report from FDLE.

Coleman was instructed to run email searches to determine whether that was the case, Craig told the investigators.

Bartolotta resigned in during the investigations in January 2012, saying commissioners no longer had confidence in his leadership.

An analysis of Bartolotta's computer found 11,000 emails were deleted, though all but 103 were recovered from the system backups. Emails could have been lost because the back up for city databases and servers was failing — or because they were deleted on the back end of the server, the report says.

Email traffic also indicated the city manager was using his iPhone for public business, which the report suggests could raise Sunshine Law issues.

Sylint reviewed the computer and mass storage device for Heather Essa, who works in the city auditor and clerk's office. They did not find any deleted files.

However, a review of Essa's laptop showed the archive manager system may be failing to capture certain emails, which would also be a Sunshine Law problem.

Investigators found 747 messages were deleted from Deputy City Manager Marlon Brown's computer. Because Brown was using a new computer — and the IT Department could not find his old one — the investigators could not determine how many of the deleted emails were recoverable, the report states.

Files containing exempt emails from staff in the city auditor and clerk's office were found on Brown's laptop and a similar file was found on Bartolotta's laptop. There were no public records requests associated with the information in the files.

Brown is still at the city, although one commissioner — Shannon Snyder — has repeatedly questioned why he has a job.

“The deputy city manager was right in there with (Bartolotta). This is not how you govern. This is an expensive, serious cost to taxpayers,” Snyder said Friday.

Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the FBI and HUD looked into the situation. FDLE completed its investigation and did not find criminal wrongdoing.

Barwin, the city manager, said he will update commissioners Monday on the status of the law enforcement investigations into city staff. City commissioners said they will discuss the details Monday evening at City Hall.

Barwin said he believed the FBI had concluded their investigation and did not plan to prosecute, but he was waiting on confirmation from the agency. A HUD official told him they did not find criminal activity by current or former employees, he said.

“They assured me nothing they saw or discovered was leading to any consideration of criminal charges,” Barwin said.

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